What Kind of Data Is Appropriate For the Cloud?

When it comes to cloud the main question that needs to be answered: Is it important to control who has access to the data? If data is publicly available in the first place, as with census or economic data, it doesn’t matter if it’s secure. Placing this type of data in the cloud is a no-brainer, as more people will benefit from the shared knowledge.

On the other hand, any data that contains sensitive or personally identifiable information, such as credit card numbers, usernames and passwords, or health records, must be contextualized for security. If it is to be broadcast in any way, that data has to be anonymized and generalized so that it can be safely stored in the cloud.

Steps commonly taken to anonymize data include replacing names and locations with numerical codes. This is referred to as de-identification of data. Another technique is limiting the data; the safe harbor method requires removing 18 categories of data.

Of course, your approach will be based on the specific laws you must comply with in your industry, with healthcare’s HIPAA laws being among the strictest currently. While it’s true that there are many strong motivators for placing data in the cloud, there is no need to assume the associated risks if they won’t afford the promised benefits.

There are typically three main reasons to store and process data in the cloud:

Capacity. The cloud has more capacity to store and process data than any individual enterprise.

Flexibility. The cloud is governed by management technology that allows capacity to scale up or down in response to oscillating volume or traffic. The major benefit of this capability is that enterprises no longer need to purchase excess equipment “just in case” volume spikes. In this age of viral marketing and mass Internet phenomena, which can cause huge fluctuation in traffic, this represents significant cost savings in addition to added flexibility.

Accessibility. The cloud helps enterprises broaden the number of users who have access to data and services. As new businesses launch and new partnerships are struck, the cloud becomes a critical tool in a company’s growth strategy, as it eliminates a long-standing technological hindrance to time-to-market—provisioning and integration of enterprise systems.

Today’s world requires a converged delivery model— sourced across traditional, private and public cloud offerings—that’s the right fit for your specific needs. A strategy incorporating by easySERVICE Data Solutions provides simplicity, speed, compliance and reduced cost and risk. More specifically, Converged Cloud offers:

Choice in delivery models across private, managed and public clouds and the technology to support.

Confidence of knowing that if you invest with us, you will have the ability to move services around and not get locked in to a particular architecture type or delivery model

Consistency of experience and a common architecture across delivery models

Organizations that partner with easySERVICE will find the right solution that addresses their specific needs for cloud application development and testing. Your dev/test projects benefit from this converged delivery model, which provides dev/test environments with simplicity, speed, reduced cost and risk and the right level of security and compliance.

At easySERVICE Data Solutions, our Cloud offerings have a common technology foundation with an open architecture for the delivery of cloud services across private, managed and public clouds, enabling seamless portability through a single management portal.

Our cloud solution takes a new approach to enabling secure content sharing and mobile file collaboration. Offered as an on-premise or cloud solution, our document management system provides strict security layer for protecting, controlling and tracking sensitive documents, no matter where they go.

The cloud model reduces complexity, cost and allows unparalleled scalability and everywhere access. easySERVICE™ also offers private cloud and virtual appliance solutions to certain government organizations and large enterprises that may need to adhere to specific guidelines and regulations.

The ability to view, annotate and edit synched files from any device.

Internal and external collaboration features to work securely with anyone without losing control of enterprise data.

If your business is ready to make the switch to faster, safer, more reliable managed hosting, easySERVICE Data Solutions can help. Our competitively priced hosting solutions were rated the most reliable, fastest and most secure available. Contact us at (855) US STELLAR